


Heavy as a Hurricane

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Apocalypse 2: Electric Boogaloo, Fights, Gen, Jaegers (Pacific Rim), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019), Titans & Jaegers AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25720261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: Monarch began the Jaeger Project shortly after the tragedy of San Francisco. Of course, no one could have predicted that someday the Jaegers would be used to fight side by side with the Titans, instead of against them.(basically, post-KotM Godzilla with a sprinkling of Pacific Rim)
Relationships: Madison Russell & Castle Bravo peeps, Madison Russell & Mark Russell, Mark Russell & Castle Bravo peeps, Mothra & Madison Russell
Comments: 75
Kudos: 112





	1. March 2023

**Author's Note:**

> Well. Here we go again. To everyone who’s been around my tumblr: this one’s for you. 
> 
> ~~I can’t believe I wrote this.~~ Also, like. I picked out the bits of canon I wanted and shredded the parts I didn’t. If some detail doesn’t match with either canon, that’s the AU part, babey. I make the rules ’round here.
> 
> Title is from “The Resistance” by Skillet. Hope y’all enjoy!

Ling had been troubled all day, ever since her conversation with her sister. She fiddled with the journal on the table in front of her, full of observations and notes taken over the past four years. Twirling a pen in one hand, she half-turned to watch Mark, who was hunched over by the window, furiously writing in his own notebook.

Visible through the glass, Maddie sat at the end of the catwalk, out of the way of the bustling activity. She spoke to Mothra often, and Ling had the feeling she said far more than what she ever admitted to her father.

“Hey,” she heard.

She looked back at Mark, who was staring at her with a little frown. “You okay?” he asked once he had her attention. “You seem distracted.”

Sighing, Ling flipped her journal closed, knowing he was right, and she wouldn’t get any useful work done like this. “I’m the one who should be asking you that,” she said. “It’s the anniversary of Boston.”

Mark made a face. “Is it awful that the five years after Andrew’s death hit me harder than these four years since Emma’s?”

“I don’t think so. You had grown apart from her. Losing your son versus losing your ex-wife… I would have been surprised if they hurt the same.”

He conceded the point with a tilt of his head. “It’s Maddie I’m worried about.” He spared a glance through the observation window. “But even she seems to be handling it better each year.”

Ling didn’t mention that perhaps, the now sixteen-year-old had grown more used to dealing with grief. “I imagine Mothra is a good listener,” she said instead, hoping to ease him out of his distress.

He laughed, leaning back in his chair as the frown on his face faded. “Yeah, I bet. But seriously, Ling. Maddie and I are doing fine, despite it all. What about you?”

She grimaced. “I spoke with Ilene earlier. The Jaeger Project isn’t helping the way Monarch had hoped.”

Mark stood to wander closer. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned against the wall beside her desk. “How many kaiju have there been again?”

“They just faced the fifth. And the period of time between them has grown shorter with each one.”

He whistled lowly. “So the Titans are still taking heavy hits, even with the Jaegers?”

“Yes. They still do most of the work, and spend the entire fight with one eye on the Jaeger, which is distracting them. If anything, we seem to be making the situation worse. Ilene believes it’s a matter of trust, that they are not yet willing to rely on the Jaegers as true allies.”

Snorting derisively, Mark shook his head and said, “Can you blame ’em? They probably know exactly who the Jaegers are piloted by—the same people who have tried to kill them in the past. If I was a Titan, I sure as hell wouldn’t trust the giant, weaponized, human-controlled machines to watch _my_ back.”

Ling hadn’t considered that before. Like her sister, she had wondered if it was merely something the Titans would get used to in time. But if the mistrust went deeper than them simply not having encountered anything like the Jaegers before…

Mark continued when she didn’t respond. “Much as I hate to admit it, the Titans aren’t stupid. If they know that the Jaeger Project predates the kaiju, then they know the Jaeger’s original purpose wasn’t to fight the kaiju. And, well, what else would Titan-sized weapons be used for?”

“I had not thought of that,” she admitted. “But if you are correct, then we are incredibly limited in what we can do to increase their trust.”

He grimaced apologetically. “I’d love to be wrong on this one, Ling. I really would.”

Unfortunately, it made sense. Humans had not been particularly kind to the Titans. She had to wonder if there was some way they’d caught on to all the talks of exterminating them, as if they were common pests.

Salvaging the new purpose of the Jaeger Project might prove even harder than her initial worries. Depending on how much the Titans understood, any attempts at building trust could come across as fake. If the pilots would even be willing to try, of course. Just because the Titans had proved crucial to killing the invading kaiju didn’t mean everyone was suddenly willing to trust them.

And perhaps that was the crux of the problem: the mistrust went both ways.

The door to the egg chamber opened and Maddie entered the room with a beaming smile. “Any day now,” she told them. “She’s gonna hatch soon, I just know it.”

Being the only surviving witness of Mothra’s previous hatching, Ling was inclined to believe her, even if their studies so far were inconclusive on a hatch date. “We’ll be ready,” she promised.

“And no containment field,” Maddie said, a familiar reminder to herself that this time wouldn’t be anything like last time.

“No containment field,” Mark repeated, gripping her shoulder. “No shock sticks, no people in there with her right away.”

“And no Jonah,” Ling said, reaching out to grasp Maddie’s hand. “We will take every precaution, Maddie, to make sure this goes as smoothly and pleasantly as possible.”

“I know. I just can’t wait to see her again.”

Mark grinned at his daughter. “I’ll bet she remembers you.”

“You really think so?”

Ling let their conversation become background noise as the first seeds of an idea took root in her head.

• • • 

“Well, we’re screwed if that’s the case,” Rick said once Ling finished speaking over the video call, having explained her conversation with Mark.

“We can’t give up hope,” Ilene said, shooting him a glare. “There must be some way we can build trust.”

“But both ways?” Rick asked. “C’mon, you can’t tell me we could put a couple’a humans in front of Godzilla—or just about any Titan, for that matter—and not expect them to be visibly terrified. And since all our pilots are either from G-team or some other military unit, they’re not here to make friends.”

“Which is why I think we should try a new pair of pilots,” Ling said before he could really get going. “People who Godzilla in particular can’t associate with an attempt on his life. If he begins to trust them, we must hope the other Titans will follow.”

“Do you have someone in mind?” Ilene asked.

Ling hesitated. Her idea didn’t quite sit right with her, for a number of perfectly understandable reasons, but for the two days she’d been turning it over in her head, it only served to make more and more sense. “Is there an age restriction on the Jaeger technology?” she asked.

Rick put his head down on the table and groaned. “I don’t like that question. I don’t like where you’re going with that question.”

Her sister’s reaction was much less dramatic, but knowing her as well as she did, Ling could see her discomfort. “For better or worse,” she said, clearly considering her answer, “I believe such a restriction would be overlooked, if it meant ensuring the safety of countless lives. Might I assume you’re thinking of Maddie?”

“Yes. And Mark. They are impressively in-tune these days, and given their respective past encounters with Titans…”

“Aw, hell,” Rick said, lifting and tilting his head to the side to prop his cheek up on the heel of his hand. “You just might be onto something, Ling.”

“Unfortunately, there are many reasons it’s _not_ a good idea,” she admitted. “For one, they are classified as Monarch civilians—though I think, similarly to age issues, that would be overlooked. I also dislike the idea of putting them in that sort of danger. After everything they’ve gone through, neither Mark nor Maddie deserve that.”

“Do you think Mark would even agree?” Ilene asked.

“I don’t know. That’s another reason I’m hesitant. If he does agree, I can’t imagine it would be because he genuinely wanted to be part of the Jaeger Project.”

“This would be easier if you two could pilot one of those hunks of metal,” Rick grumbled.

Ilene chuckled and shook her head, rapping the table between them with her knuckles. “It’s not a no forever, Rick. It’s a _not yet_. They’ll figure something out.”

“I know, I know, sheesh.” He sent Ling an apologetical look. “I was just saying, is all.”

“But until that day comes,” Ling stressed, in no mood to have this conversation, “the Titans cannot go on like this. If the kaiju continue the pattern of arriving after shorter and shorter breaks, or if, heaven forbid, more than one shows up, the Titans will be overwhelmed. If we don’t change things now, instead of providing much-needed support, the Jaegers’ presence will only remain detrimental.”

The three of them fell silent for a minute.

Eventually, Ilene sighed. “Mark and Maddie might be our best hope, if it’s true that the Titans mistrust is of the pilots and not the newness of the Jaegers. Talk to them,” she said to her sister. “And we’ll handle things here. It might take more definitive proof for them to even be considered by the board.”

“I know. I am only worried that we are running out of time.” Ling smiled weakly. “Another kaiju should show up in a few weeks, won’t it?”

“Yeah,” Rick answered, grim. “Projections aren’t looking good.”

“Then we must be ready,” Ilene said, standing. “For when this all comes to a head. If Mark can’t be convinced, then there’s no point in broaching the subject here.”

“I wish good luck to us all,” Ling said, preparing to end the call. “I have a terrible feeling we’re going to need it.”

• • •

Mark was remarkably more willing to consider the idea than Ling had dared hope for. There hadn’t been anything like a _yes_ yet, but he heard her out while nodding slowly, if a bit reluctantly.

They spoke while Mothra was hatching, on the very day Maddie had predicted. With Maddie preoccupied with watching the process, anxiously fidgeting over the thought of some disaster striking, it was easy to explain without worrying about her overhearing.

Maddie, Ling suspected, would have little to no hesitation over agreeing to give piloting a go. It wouldn’t be fair to Mark to pressure him with that.

“What about the kaiju themselves?” he asked lowly, eyes on his daughter. “We’ve been kinda cut off from all the news, so I have no idea what the fights are even like. Are they… getting worse or anything?”

“The data is somewhat inconclusive on that,” Ling admitted. “Each Titan fights differently, and while we can make visual observations as much as we’d like, we don’t have a standard for what would be ‘easy’ or ‘hard’ in a fight.”

“And how have the Jaegers been faring?”

“There have been minor damages so far, and a few minor injuries among the pilots. Nothing more serious than a pulled muscle.” Of course, the Titans seldom allowed them to really get close.

“That could change real quick, though,” Mark muttered, likely thinking the same.

Ling stayed quiet. She refused to lie, and he hardly needed to hear a confirmation of his worries. For the time being, they let the conversation go and focused on Mothra, who had finally finished hatching.

“Excited much?” Mark laughingly asked Maddie. She nearly vibrated where she stood at the window, palms pressed to the glass.

“Shut up,” she tossed over her shoulder. “It’s been _forever_ since I last saw her.”

Checking the station remotely monitoring Mothra’s heart rate, Ling smiled, pleased. Taking a step back and using Outpost 61 as an example of “what not to do” was proving to be the right choice. Mothra was as calm as could be.

“Maddie,” she said. “Would you like to go say hi?”

Maddie bit her lip and shouldered at her dad. “Can I? Please?”

He sighed long-sufferingly. “I suppose. _But!_ You get out of there at the slightest indication of distress.”

She nodded quickly before darting to the door. Ling watched her take a deep breath, and slip out of the observation room.

“I don’t know,” Mark said suddenly. “I just really don’t know, Ling. Can you believe that? A couple years ago, I’d have said no before you could even finish the question, and now I’m—considering it. Actually considering it.”

“I’m sorry, Mark. If we think of anything else to try, we will. I hate that it’s come to this.”

“We’re running out of time, aren’t we? With the kaiju.”

They watched silently as Maddie stood before Mothra, who leaned down with a cooing purr. She reached a hand out, her delighted laughter spilling through the speakers as the Titan came close enough to touch. Mothra paused for only a moment before gently surging closer, knocking into Maddie with a joyful trill. She recognized her. Maddie hugged Mothra’s face, and Ling would have bet anything that the teenager was crying.

The Titans could not fight with allies they didn’t trust.

“Yes,” Ling finally answered softly. “Yes.”

• • • 

They obtained the proof they needed not two weeks later. Ilene and Rick had broached the subject to the board of the Jaeger Project, and while they were right that desperation turned rules into flimsy, ignorable things, no one was quite willing just then to involve two civilians, one of which was a minor.

And then the sixth kaiju arrived.

A Jaeger was sent in, as usual, but both Godzilla and Mothra, who had long since obtained her wings, beat the humans to the battle. They had been winning, slowly but surely.

Things changed with the appearance of the Jaeger. If Godzilla had been twitchy around them before, constantly keeping one eye on it and never allowing his back to entirely face it, then he was twice as bad now.

Even at the cost of his own safety, he kept himself between the Jaeger and Mothra at all times, taking hits from the kaiju that he definitely could have avoided, if the kaiju had been his number one concern.

It became increasingly obvious that it wasn’t.

He seemed ready to attack the machine just as much as the invading monster, and the entire flow of the fight was thrown off. The human pilots grew more and more nervous, resulting in beginner mistakes and, towards the end of the long, tense showdown, a jittery trigger-finger caused a too-close call.

Godzilla tail-whipped the Jaeger with a roar as Mothra managed to skewer the kaiju’s throat, weakening it enough for Godzilla to latch on with his teeth and rip its head off.

The Jaeger was left badly damaged, and Monarch concluded that the only reason Godzilla didn’t descend upon it to finish it off was because Mothra coaxed him away.

The final report catalogued shaky pilots who were refusing to go back out, a Jaeger that would require all new panelling where Godzilla’s tail had hit, and a definitive lack of trust on the Titans’ end. It finished with a statement of: _If the other Titans follow Godzilla’s lead, relations are guaranteed to worsen further. The Jaeger Project is on the verge of ultimate failure._

Then, and only then, did the board unanimously agree to give the Russells a Jaeger and hope for the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll see where this goes from here. I do have the basic events of the past four years figured out, but I'm not sure if they'll ever make it into the story. The chapters might jump around timeline-wise, I don't know. 
> 
> That being said, let me know if you want to see more of this AU or if you want to see something from the other Pacific Rim AU that I talked about on tumblr. 
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	2. April/June 2023

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick explanation about heights. KotM Godzilla was 393 feet tall, whereas 2014 Godzilla was 355 feet tall. I don’t know the heights of all the real Jaegers, but a comparison chart I found placed five of them between 250-280 feet. I’ve decided that since the Jaegers in this story were originally made to combat Titans, notably Godzilla, they made them close to Godzilla’s 2014 height, prior to his apparent growth spurt. Basically, Mark and Maddie’s Jaeger is about 330 feet tall, which puts them around Godzilla’s shoulder. 
> 
> Anyway, hope y’all enjoy!

The sixth kaiju had broken the pattern they thought they’d established, resulting in plenty of breaths being held to see if the next invader would follow the original schedule or adapt to a new one.

They got lucky. It seemed the sixth was an outlier, and when several weeks passed with no signs of a seventh, the steadily-climbing tensions around the world broke. Like many of her fellows, Ling breathed a sigh of relief. Mark and Maddie weren’t ready yet, and had a new kaiju appeared, they would not have been able to join the fight.

For better or worse, though, the unexpected appearance of the sixth monster had taught Monarch a much needed lesson. They could gather as much data as possible, they could have the best predictive programs, they could calculate down to a square mile where the next would show itself, but at the end of the day, the kaiju were still living creatures.

And living creatures could be unpredictable. Overconfidence would only serve to leave humanity vulnerable and unprepared.

As Rick would say, “We can’t afford to get cocky here, people.”

• • •

Mark was _trying_ to pay attention to the man explaining something or other at the front of the conference table, but it was _hard,_ okay? His brain was focused more on what had happened just that morning than on—common physical traits they were finding in the kaiju, apparently.

Beside him, Maddie’s leg was silently bouncing at a mile a minute, and her eyes were staring far past anything in the room. The barest hint of her distraction bled into him.

He wondered what, if anything, she was receiving from him.

This morning had been their first time in their Jaeger. Drifting. They’d performed basic movements—lift that arm, engage this weapon—but hadn’t left the hangar. It’d lasted maybe half an hour, and most of it was other people talking them through the process.

They’d barely even done anything, so _why_ was he having so much trouble setting it aside to focus on other things? Nothing about the experience had been particularly worrying, and the people who knew how the whole thing worked had been pleased with the results. It had gone well, Mark had been told. Everyone was optimistic about the venture.

Now, Mark wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, going into it. Pain, maybe. In simple terms, he and Maddie would share headspace while Drifting. There were a lot of ways that could go badly, if you asked him.

It hadn’t, though. It hadn’t, but he was still left reeling from both the experience itself and the aftermath. Part of him wondered if he was imagining it all, having been warned about a residual, though muted, connection with his daughter. Ghost Drifting, they called it.

Was that little sliver of Maddie in his head his imagination? Was he just making stuff up now? Was he going crazy? Hallucinating? Everything about the Jaegers was just _so much,_ but Maddie didn’t seem to be struggling.

A foot kicked his leg beneath the table. He glanced at Maddie to see her side-eyeing him. Maybe not just his imagination, then.

“Stop freaking out,” she whispered under her breath.

“I’m not freaking out.”

The look she sent him was openly incredulous. “I can _feel_ you panicking.”

“Then you should know I’m only—distracted.”

“No, _I’m_ distracted, you’re sending yourself into a mental spiral of anxiety and confusion.”

She was _right_ too, not that he particularly wanted to admit it to his sixteen-year-old daughter. “I’m fine,” he said instead. Realizing that the man had stopped talking and the other four adults were now looking at them, he coughed and added, “Sorry for interrupting.”

“It’s boring,” Maddie said, swiveling her chair back and forth. “You’ve already shown us videos of all the kaiju that have come through so far. We’ve seen the claws and stuff.”

Ilene turned her face away, but she wasn’t quite quick enough to smother her laughter.

“Yeah, man.” Rick sat up and leaned over the table. “This is all pretty basic. You got a point to make?” Given the smug look Rick directed at the man, Mark got the impression that Rick knew exactly what that point was.

The man huffed and straightened his papers. “We had originally presumed the kaiju were similar to the Titans, perhaps as a different… family group. They seem to share many physical traits with each other. However, recent advancements in our studies suggest their origins are not what we expected.”

Rick snorted. “You mean some people still insisted they weren’t aliens, and you were part of the ‘they’re biologically linked to the Titans’ group.”

Ling interrupted before a true argument could break out. “It was good of you to research all possibilities. If you could explain your conclusions to the Russells…?”

“Yes, well. We have several reasons to believe that these kaiju are closely related to Ghidorah’s species, which may someday include comparable appearances and abilities, unfortunately. If Dr. Chen’s theory about him coming from another world is correct, they might all be from the same… planet.”

“It hurt you to say that, didn’t it, you unbeliever?” Rick asked. The man sent him a glare.

Ignoring them, Ilene made eye contact with Mark, then Maddie. “We wanted to be sure you both understood what you would be facing, considering your past experiences with Ghidorah. They might not look the same now, but that may change someday. No one will blame you if you change your minds,” Ilene assured them.

“Are you kidding?” Maddie asked, a wild smile on her face. “You’re telling me I have the opportunity to punch Ghidorah’s cousin or whatever in the face, and you think I’m going to back out of that?”

Mark sighed feelingly.

• • •

The seventh kaiju appeared right when their programs predicted, further confirming the original pattern of shorter breaks between attacks. It, like the others, surfaced not far from the headquarters of the Jaeger Project—nicknamed the Shatterdome, for some reason Mark had yet to figure out—in the Gulf of Mexico.

The accepted theory for why this seemed to be the kaiju hotspot cited Ghidorah’s decapitation by Godzilla. Though the lost head had never been found, the possibility of the Gulf of Mexico remaining as its resting place was all they had to go off of.

Not that Mark really cared about why this was where seven out of seven had first shown their ugly mugs. All he cared about right then was the fact that he and Maddie were suited up, Jaegered up, and in general, up. In the air, that was.

Eight helicopters were carrying their Jaeger—Alpha Echo—over the gulf to the kaiju’s current location. He didn’t usually have a problem with heights, but there was something particularly nerve-racking about being in a giant _heavy_ metal robot above very deep water.

Maddie’s teasing amusement bled through the link between them. He sent pointed thoughts about watery graves back. To his right, he heard a very distinct snort. Mark resisted the urge to send her a look.

They’d been deemed ready for this several days earlier, and only after several weeks of practice and training and simulations. Despite all that, some part of him remained sure that they were woefully unprepared.

Maddie snickered. “It’s just a kaiju,” said the only person in the Jaeger who had decided to scream in raging defiance right to Ghidorah’s face.

“Just a kaiju,” he repeated. “You’ve lost all sense of self-preservation, haven’t you?”

“Not _all_ of it.”

He heard the laughter behind her insistence, both in her voice and his head.

“C’mon, Dad,” Maddie said, “aren’t you at least a little excited?”

Mark almost asked what there was to be _excited_ about, but her thrill at controlling a giant robot and fighting alongside Titans and fighting in general and—it all rushed through him in a quick, foreign flood of adrenaline.

 _I’ve raised a daredevil,_ he loudly thought.

 _You didn’t raise squat, old man,_ she instinctively responded.

“Maddie!”

“I didn’t mean it like that! And you can’t get mad at me for stuff that I don’t think on purpose just because you can hear it now! It’s not like I would’ve said that out loud.”

Mark chuckled despite himself. It was a testament to the years of healing, talking, and a bit of therapy, that a spike of guilty pain didn’t seize his heart. And he felt the truth of her statement, that Maddie hadn’t intended it as a jab at those years of absence after San Francisco.

Her apologetic feelings poked at him anyway. He soothed them away, and in moments, her giddy excitement had returned.

Something pinged in the cockpit, and they simultaneously turned their attention to the visual feed of their shared robotic body. They were approaching the kaiju.

It was already engaged in battle, Mark saw as the helicopters flew them closer. This was the first time he’d seen one in person and not just as a recording on a computer screen or in a news report.

In another world, perhaps the Titans and these alien kaiju would have been grouped together as unquestionable enemies of humanity. Though the similarities weren’t great, simply seeing two creatures of such massive size would have been enough for anyone to instinctively think of them as one and the same, had the Titans not already proved themselves as protectors.

Mark took in the sight of those claws and teeth, growing nearer with every passing moment, and was surprised to find he wasn’t necessarily afraid of facing them. Being in the Jaeger—it made him feel stronger, less fragile. Less mortal.

Traces of adrenaline-excitement-determination brushed against him, and he glanced over to his daughter to see that wild smile back on her face.

That was less surprising than his own lack of fear. This wouldn’t be the first Titan-sized creature she’d faced down, and this time, she could actually fight back. Their Jaeger was called Alpha Echo for a reason, and Mark himself had nothing to do with it.

A short countdown until their planned descent appeared on the screen between him and Maddie. Ahead of them, the kaiju roared. The shape of it distantly reminded him of the creature from _Alien_. He took a deep breath and felt his own determination settle into his bones.

“Ready?” Mark asked, glancing over at Maddie.

She whooped. “Hell yeah!”

The countdown hit zero, Mark pressed the button to release the cables attaching them to the helicopters, and Alpha Echo dropped.

• • •

For better or worse, Godzilla was the one taking on this new kaiju. He shifted around with a snarl as they approached. Both creatures were bloody—with the red blood of an Earth-bound creature and the shocking blue of something terribly foreign—and worn from grappling with each other before Mark and Maddie had arrived. The two behemoths were circling each other, both intact but wary, when they were joined by the Jaeger.

And it was… odd. Not bad, just odd. Neither Mark nor Maddie really _needed_ to say a word to each other as they moved. It was different from before, when they weren’t yet using the Jaeger. The bridge that allowed them to share thoughts and emotions was so much _more_ with movement involved. It didn’t feel like either of them was more in-charge than the other, or like their actions were only in-character with one of them. It was like they had met somewhere in the middle, and fallen in sync.

They waved at Godzilla, because that was what Maddie would do, but they also checked that their shield could be raised at a moment’s notice, because that was what Mark would do.

Godzilla’s bared teeth vanished at the friendly gesture. He backed off away from the kaiju and eyed their Jaeger with a clear mixture of curiosity and caution.

“There should be a speaker system,” Maddie said, or perhaps thought. Mark couldn’t quite tell. “So we can talk to him.”

“I’ll ask about it when we get back,” Mark responded.

They were close enough by then to go on the attack, and without waiting for Godzilla to make a move, Alpha Echo engaged their Electric Knuckles feature.

After a short pause, thick lines of crackling plasma lit up on all of their fingers, starting from the tip and going over every knuckle, ending on the back of their hands. Alpha Echo swung at the distracted kaiju, which had erroneously decided Godzilla was the right threat to focus on, and sent the monster’s head snapping back, burn marks searing its leathery flesh where the plasma connected.

It bellowed and stumbled, quickly righting itself. The kaiju lunged at them, teeth savagely bared. They ducked and latched their sharp-tipped fingers into the armored plate covering the monster’s chest. Using their body weight as a counterpoint, Alpha Echo swung around, fairly yanking the kaiju off its feet. Releasing it before it could retaliate, they gestured invitingly at the flailing kaiju, as if offering to let Godzilla take a turn.

The King did. With a rumbling growl, Godzilla locked his jaw around the flesh of its shoulder from behind. The monster was left off-balance, wailing furiously as it tried to swipe at either of its opponents. Godzilla’s tail thrashed through the waves behind him, and though it might not have been clear to bystanders, his bright eyes were focused on the Jaeger opposite him.

Alpha Echo raised their hands up, their pointer fingers and thumbs forming L-shapes, creating a box between them. As if framing a photograph, they aimed the box at the kaiju’s chest and hovered it from one side to the other.

Their Plasma Canon began powering up on their right arm as they gave Godzilla a thumbs-up with their left. The King angled his body further away from where they’d set their target. In desperation, the kaiju clawed at its captured shoulder. Its talons raked down Godzilla’s snout and he pulled away right as Alpha Echo’s canon fired.

The kaiju wasn’t fast enough to dodge. The brightly burning shot tore through the flesh beside the armored chest plate. It stumbled. Staggered. Growled and sluggishly dove at the Jaeger. The second, third, and fourth plasma shots blasted point-blank into its chest and throat.

It swiped at Alpha Echo’s head and they effortlessly batted its claws away with their forearm. Nearly falling over, it twisted to try and get a last hit on Godzilla instead. It was met with a face-full of atomic breath.

Godzilla huffed as the kaiju collapsed into the water, a large hole seared straight through its head, and its throat flayed open. Alpha Echo victoriously punched the air.

(Unbeknownst to anyone outside the Jaeger’s cockpit, a quick but fierce debate on whether Godzilla knew enough about human culture to recognize and reciprocate a fist bump was taking place. Tragically, the conclusion was not in favor of the fist bump.)

Dismissing the corpse, Godzilla swung back around to the Jaeger. There was no aggression in his stance when he stepped closer, a deep, continuous rumble emitting from the back of his throat. He sniffed at the air, though he couldn’t smell either of the humans concealed in Alpha Echo’s head.

Unable to speak, Alpha Echo gave another little wave, this one less of a greeting and more a friendly acknowledgement. They were shorter than him by sixty-some feet, putting their eye-line at his shoulder, with how he naturally held a hunched posture. Godzilla snorted and finally turned away without once making a move against the Jaeger. 

• • • 

Ling couldn’t stop smiling. The Russells had preformed above and beyond what anyone could have expected. They’d effortlessly diffused any tension that could have formed between them and Godzilla. The kaiju was dead, the Jaeger nearly untouched, and Godzilla wasn’t suffering from any terrible injuries this time.

And petty as it might be, she sincerely looked forward to the floundering silence of the nonbelievers who’d just been proven wrong. The pilots had been the problem, and their new, non-military pilots were clearly the solution.

The Shatterdome was loud in its celebration. Somewhere in its vast halls and crowded rooms, Ling knew Ilene and Rick were waiting. She stood, intending to go find them, so the three of them could welcome Mark and Maddie back.

As she maneuvered her way to the exit, someone—the pristine suit among the casual clothes pointed towards a board member or the like; the type who’d never done a day’s worth of field work in their life—spoke up. And the bitter, argumentative tone he used told Ling all she needed to know. He was one of those who’d doubted the Russells.

“But Godzilla can’t see them in there!” the man protested. “It could be a complete coincidence! How would he even know anything was different?”

“Because,” Ling said before anyone else in the vicinity could answer, “they didn’t act like a soldier.” She thought of all the different approaches Jaegers had made towards the Titans. Guns at the ready, defenses up, plasma charged—and all pointed just as much at their so-called allies as the aliens. She thought of Alpha Echo’s little wave, the thumbs-up, the clear indication that when they engaged their Plasma Canon, they’d be aiming for the side opposite Godzilla.

Ling turned her head to make pointed eye contact with the man who’d spoken. “They acted like a friend.”

The techs who looked just as frustrated with the man broke out into cheerful agreement. _Loud_ cheerful agreement, thoroughly drowning out any sullen rebuttal.

Satisfied, Ling continued on her way, her smile returning with ease. For the first time since the Jaeger’s had proved more detrimental than helpful to the kaiju fights, she felt hope. The Titans wouldn’t have to fight alone anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, I really enjoyed writing Alpha Echo as a character, and leaving Mark and Maddie out of it for the most part. The fights will get more intense and difficult as time passes, but I wasn’t mean enough to make their first encounter really hard, lol. Mostly, Godzilla wore it down before they arrived, and it wasn’t a particularly tough kaiju. 
> 
> Love y’all bunches! I also finally watched Pacific Rim all the way through for the first time, and I literally can’t stop thinking about it. 
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	3. June 2023

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I describe Alpha Echo a bit more in this chapter, and while I would love to show you guys exactly what I’m imagining, I can’t, so I’ll say that if you can more or less picture Gipsy Danger with different colors, you’re probably doing okay. Look, I love glowy things, and they put a giant glowy thing right smack in the center of that Jaeger, no one can actually expect me to resist including it. 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

Maddie sat on the floor behind the glass of one of the many observation rooms overlooking the hangar. Alpha Echo stood on the other side, shiny and enormous and wonderful. The color scheme largely consisted of black and purple with bright silver accents. Personally, she thought it was awesome.

Specific designs had been painstakingly put together in an effort to make the different Jaegers—and the different pilot pairs by extension—recognizable to the Titans. There were currently three Jaegers in the hangar, and two of them were the ones Monarch soldiers had kept using. She and her dad were the first to pilot Alpha Echo, who had only been named the day before their first Drift.

She traced the shape of Alpha Echo’s purple visor on the window. Little silver, v-shaped wings decorated the upper corners of it. In the center of Alpha Echo’s chest was a massive turbine, a nuclear reactor. It made the whole Jaeger hum faintly when it was active, and Maddie would never complain about that.

She liked to think of it as a heartbeat, in a way, like Alpha Echo’s very own life sign.

The bright fiery orange glow it produced contrasted brilliantly with the rest of her Jaeger’s coloring and stood out in the same way as Godzilla’s illuminated spines. There wasn’t a thing Maddie would change about Alpha Echo. Except for adding a speaker system, of course. If what she’d been told was correct, the people currently climbing around her Jaeger were doing just that.

Piloting Alpha Echo was one of the best experiences of her life. Maybe it was silly to think so, but it had felt like something had just… clicked into place. It felt good, it felt _right,_ to go out there and fight the kaiju with Godzilla.

Her dad had been worried about it, before they really fell into sync and everything became a tangled two-person instinct. Afterwards, once they’d gotten back, he’d been a little hysterical from the contrasting feelings of his own disbelief that he’d actually just done that, and the echoes of her joyous triumph.

The Drift seemed harder for him to deal with, or maybe come to terms with. For her, it was like coming home. It was everything she’d never had the guts to say, and everything she couldn’t put to words, and the infinite, unconditional warmth it brought her was almost painful to disconnect from.

For the sake of the Titans and humanity, Maddie didn’t want more kaiju to arrive to wreak havoc. But at the same time, for the sake of piloting Alpha Echo again, Maddie couldn’t wait for the next kaiju to show up. Guilt bubbled inside her, sour and sharp, for thinking that, but she couldn’t help it.

It’d been a few weeks since her and her dad’s fight, and if the next kaiju came through when they expected, it’d be mid-July. Thanks to the scare the sixth one had given everybody, they wanted the Russells to stay at the Shatterdome at all times, in case another arrived off schedule.

It wasn’t like she was missing much, though, considering how long they’d spent in relative isolation with Mothra’s egg. She’d already been used to not doing normal daily things, so it wasn’t much of a change. There was plenty to think about, anyway, and even as she thought that, she glanced down at the single piece of paper resting innocently beside her.

Maddie wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there when the door opened behind her. “There you are,” her dad said. He came to join her, knees creaking as he lowered himself to the floor with an oomph. “Enjoying the view?”

“You know it,” she said. “Isn’t it awesome to think that you and I were controlling something so enormous?”

She watched him give Alpha Echo a once-over. He cracked a small grin. “It is pretty cool.”

Leaning back on her hands, Maddie sighed contentedly. “Yeah. Did you need something?”

“No, no. Just wondering where you disappeared to after lunch. What’s that?” her dad asked, picking up the paper between them.

It was a page from the printed report of their first fight. The only thing that really interested her on it wasn’t the description of what happened—and it was almost impressive how boring the writer of the report made it sound—but a section in the top right corner. It was where some basic information was listed: the category of the kaiju, which Titan was part of the fight, and the shorthand notation for the Jaeger and pilots involved.

She reached over and tapped that shorthand. “Notice anything?”

Her dad stared at if for a few seconds, then shook his head.

AE:MM. Alpha Echo, Mark and Madison.

“It’s the initials of our names. Andrew, Emma, Mark, and Maddie. And it’s an anagram of Mom’s name, but I like the first one better.”

Past family troubles aside, Maddie found comfort in the idea, coincidental as it was, that Alpha Echo in some way—represented, or maybe honored—the missing half of her family.

“I dunno,” she continued when her dad didn’t say anything. “I just thought it was cool.”

“It is,” he assured her, so quickly he spoke over the last bit of her sentence. “Like a—like a group effort, to get to here. To be where we are now.”

Maddie nodded. “People name things with stuff that matters, right?”

“Yeah, kid.” Her dad slid his arm around her shoulder and gave her a little shake. “As reminders, sometimes, for what they’re fighting for.”

Alpha Echo didn’t have a mouth, but with the memory of the warmth of the Drift so clear in Maddie’s head, it didn’t need one for Maddie to smile back.

• • •

“Mothra!” Maddie waved enthusiastically from the airstrip outside the Shatterdome. The Queen of Titans trilled in greeting as she slowly circled around.

Monarch must have had a thing for bases located in the ocean. Though the Jaegers were built elsewhere, and other locations were initially scouted when the project’s intended targets were still the Titans, once they pinpointed where the kaiju were all coming from, they’d constructed a base in the Gulf of Mexico.

It was about fifty miles or so off the coast, right near the Texas-Louisiana border. Above sea level was the main hangar where the Jaegers were kept, in the shape of a giant octagon with a domed ceiling. Offices and conference rooms and living quarters and everything else were below it. Built around the hangar, in a vague bean shape, was a big concrete field. The hangar itself was positioned on one end, leaving the rest as an open area.

Most of that space was taken up by runways and landing pads, but there were areas of grass and greenery scattered around, out of the way. Maddie had found a particular favorite location out there, at a picnic table partially positioned under a tree.

Mothra landed gracefully near the edge of the platform, ensuring her wings wouldn’t get in the way of anything. As Maddie ran over, she paid no attention to the surprised exclamations she could hear behind her.

She skipped to a stop in front of the Titan and playfully bowed, as she always did. Mothra, chittering in a way unmistakable for anything other than laughter, mirrored her, wings fluttering in delight.

Sitting down in the grass, Maddie crossed her legs and leaned forward excitedly. “It’s been so long since I last saw you!”

How Mothra had even found her at the Shatterdome was a mystery, given their previous meeting had still been at the temple, just two days before she and her dad left. Since that had been at the end of April, and it was now the end of June, she’d gone two whole months without seeing her old friend.

“You’ll never believe this, Mothra,” she said. “That last fight with a kaiju, the one Godzilla was part of?” Mothra bobbed her head, the closest she ever came to a nod. “The Jaeger that went to help him—the big machine, yeah?—was being piloted by me and my dad!”

Mothra’s responding chirp sounded very surprised.

“I’ll spare you the boring details of how it all works,” she teased, “but it was… it was really somethin’ else. And I know we were only controlling it but it, it felt like we were that big. Titan-sized.” She looked away, a familiar sense of embarrassment sweeping through her. “It was awesome, is all.”

None of the other pilots had ever mentioned anything about how piloting their Jaeger felt _right_. It was a machine to them, a tool, a weapon—plain and simple. Even her dad felt that way, and she uselessly hoped he wouldn’t notice the next time they Drifted how much she enjoyed the experience itself.

Mothra leaned down and gently nudged against her, cooing softly. Encouragingly.

After double-checking that no one had wandered close enough to eavesdrop, Maddie continued with a little shrug. “I guess I feel like I shouldn’t have loved piloting as much as I did.”

Since Mothra hadn’t backed away, Maddie reached up to trace little patterns on her face as she thought. “I loved it,” she repeated quietly. “But not just because of how it felt. Part of it was what it meant, too.”

Purring, Mothra made a show of settling down in a comfy looking position. Maddie smiled, more than willing to talk her thoughts out.

“I don’t know how much you heard in your egg, but, uh, if you remember me talking about Boston and how _helpless_ I felt, before and during the battle… it felt really good to be able to do something this time. To not have to run away from a fight, but to go towards it.” She nodded to herself.

“My dad and I helped. We made a difference, and we’ll do it again next time, too. And maybe I should be scared of the kaiju, because people have gotten hurt by them, and they’re evil like Ghidorah, but—I’m not. My dad’s scared. I know he was pretty nervous, but he handled it really well. I’m just not afraid of them.”

Mothra’s wings pulsed with light, and it was at times like this that Maddie really wished they had a way of understanding Titans. Would she give her advice? Tell her it was foolish not to fear them? Or warn her not to get cocky, because the Jaegers weren’t indestructible, and neither was she?

If she was being honest, Maddie hoped in the privacy of her own mind—though was it really all that private these days?—that Mothra would offer words of reassurance. That the absence of fear wouldn’t be her downfall. That it was okay to love the feeling of piloting a Jaeger. That she and her dad had been a genuine help to Godzilla during that fight.

And—if she were braver, and able to talk about how Alpha Echo felt like home—that she wasn’t crazy or weird for thinking that.

• • •

“How’s Mothra?” Ling asked that evening. She allowed a small smile to form, but kept the rest of her glee hidden. The news of Mothra’s unexpected appearance had spread quickly through the Shatterdome, and it had been truly wonderful to see petrified realization pale the faces of those who still insisted the Russells were no different than previous pilot pairs.

A Titan arriving for the sole reason to visit Maddie—as had been evidenced by the hour and a half she’d sat on the grass, responding in her own way to the teenager’s chatter—was undeniable proof to the contrary. 

Ling liked to think she was a calm, rational person who kept less than polite comments to herself. Even she, however, had not been able to resist sending those blustering bureaucrats her smuggest looks. Witnessing such loud, arrogant men lose the wind in their sails had been the most satisfying thing she’d seen all week.

All the better that it was entirely unintentional on Maddie’s part.

And Ling knew it had been, because if word had reached Maddie about the haughty dismissal of her and Mark’s capabilities, then Maddie would have likely taken great delight in rubbing the truth in any nay-sayer’s face. She could see it now: Maddie somehow convincing Mothra to take her on a flight around the Shatterdome, giving the middle finger through all the windows and at the assorted security cameras.

The only potential consequence that Ling could predict from such a stunt would be Mark aging ten years when someone inevitably told him.

A father could only take so much, and it was no small miracle that Mark hadn’t already hit his lifetime’s limit. To him, Maddie in a Jaeger was less nerve-wracking than Maddie flying on Mothra’s back with no protection, support, or safety net.

Maddie looked over from where she was sprawled out on the couch perpendicular to Ling’s armchair. They were currently in the common room located in the middle wing dedicated to Monarch civilians who weren’t Shatterdome employees. Mainly herself, Maddie, Mark, and Ilene and Rick when they weren’t at other bases, though others came and went as necessary.

This particular common room was a favorite among them, being that it was underwater and had a large window into the ocean, much like the ones from Castle Bravo. A pleasant little reminder of their home away from home.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised word got around,” Maddie said, somewhat ruefully. “Titans aren’t very inconspicuous, huh?”

“Not in my experience, no.”

She laughed. “Mothra’s doing well, I think. She seemed happy enough, and she wasn’t injured or anything.” She stared off into the distance. “I do wonder how she found me, though.”

“Perhaps some bonds cannot be broken?” Ling suggested. It was a romantic concept, to be sure, and most would likely frown upon such an idealistic thought. But that didn’t change the fact that Mothra, who had died several years prior, had clearly recognized Maddie upon her return to life.

Maddie dropped her foot off the side of the couch to swing it back and forth. She grinned mischievously. “That sounds a lot better than ‘she smelled me’ or something.”

Ling chuckled. “I would agree.” She relaxed deeper into her comfortable armchair and sighed. “You must have been glad to see her,” she said after a shared moment of silence.

“Yeah. It’s been two months, y’know? That’s practically forever. And it was all evaluations and training and simulations and stuff.”

“Ah, but at least it wasn’t paperwork.”

Groaning dramatically, Maddie flung her arms wide, one flopping over the couch back and the other narrowly avoiding the coffee table. “I had to sign _so many_ consent forms, Ling, it’s not even funny. We’re probably lucky they ran out by the time that kaiju showed up.” She sighed. “I mean, I get why and all. But it was still annoying.”

“Unfortunately, such repetition isn’t entirely unusual,” she commiserated. “It was one of my mother’s pet peeves. She had a rubber stamp made of her signature and carried it with her whenever she left the house. She was asked to sign a receipt once, and I’ll never forget the look on the man’s face when she pulled the stamp out of her pocket.”

Maddie laughed. “That’s hilarious. Do you have one?”

“No, unfortunately, though I have considered getting one,” Ling admitted. “Even if only for the joke.”

The noisy silence of a bustling base settled back over them for a few minutes, only broken when Ling, her curiosity having returned, asked, “What did you talk to Mothra about?”

Maddie shrugged. “Pretty normal stuff, to be honest. I did tell her about Dad and I piloting the Jaeger at the last fight.” She hummed in thought. “Maybe she’ll tell the others or something. Can you imagine the Titans gossiping?”

They both laughed over the mental image it brought to mind, of side-eyes and whispers behind clawed hands or wings.

• • •

Mid-July, the next kaiju arrived right on schedule. Alpha Echo was sent out for their second battle.

By the time they arrived on the scene, within sight of Mexico’s coastline, Rodan had already engaged the hunched, thick-shouldered kaiju. At Alpha Echo’s approach, he did something no other Titan in one of these fights had done.

Prior to Alpha Echo, Jaegers were usually ignored but not forgotten, and a defensive stance was directed equally between machine and monster. Some even attacked, though never so seriously that the humans were forced to fight for their lives. Even during Alpha Echo’s first appearance, Godzilla had understandably been cautious and wary.

Now, Rodan, perched on the kaiju’s back, burning its flesh with his mere presence, looked in Alpha Echo’s direction and screeched. Then, he’d shakily taken off to retreat a short distance, clearly not abandoning the battle, but giving himself a moment to catch his breath while Alpha Echo took over.

He rejoined them a few minutes later to continue the fight.

It marked the first time a Titan hadn’t simply tolerated the presence of a Jaeger, or merely worked alongside it to get the job done, but had acted as if the pair was a true team. While one was tapped out, the other covered for them.

Their hope for genuine teamwork, for successful cooperation, no longer seemed so out of reach.

(And Ling privately wondered if perhaps there truly had been gossip among the Titans.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alpha Echo’s initials were actually one of the deciding factors for why I chose that name. When I first realized, I was just like, “IT’S PERFECT,” and the rest is history. 
> 
> Anyway, I’m absolutely loving showing the difference between how different people think of Alpha Echo. Mark thinks of it as armor, essentially, whereas Maddie thinks of it almost as its own entity. Important for later. ;) 
> 
> The next chapter will include the full fight at the end there, don’t worry. Love y’all!
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


	4. July 2023

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven’t forgotten about this story, I promise! 
> 
> The kaiju in this chapter is best described as a mix of Leatherback from Pacific Rim and Behemoth without the tusks, kinda. Uh, minor, not-terribly-descriptive violence/gore ahead.
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy!

The transport dropped Alpha Echo off a safe distance from the massive wrestling creatures. Rodan ripped his talons through the kaiju’s upper arm, wings beating hard enough to send huge waves rippling away from them.

Blood dripped down his back from three long gashes, and there was a ragged tear in his left wing. The kaiju had caught him at one point, when Rodan had been trying to hold it back from getting closer to land, and had appeared to attempt to rip his wing off. The worry in Monarch was that it would try again given half a chance.

When Alpha Echo stormed onto the scene, the kaiju was burned all across its head and wide shoulders, but otherwise wasn’t visibly injured. Compared to the previous one, this was much shorter and more heavily-built. Its back was hunched and armored. A powerhouse through and through.

And against Rodan, who—being much slighter and smaller in comparison, and a flier with speed prioritized over strength—was at a terrible disadvantage.

But that was why Alpha Echo was there: so the Titans didn’t have to fight alone, especially in cases like this. They could even the playing field.

Rodan retreated as they got closer, screeching in pained—welcome? Or merely acknowledgement? Either way, he crashed into the shallower water closer to land with barely a backward glance.

The kaiju, initially more focused on following after him, quickly changed its mind when a blast of plasma clipped its jaw. It whirled on Alpha Echo and raised itself up on its hind-legs to roar in challenge.

Gladly accepting the challenge, Alpha Echo brought their clenched fists in front of their chest, Plasma Cannon still engaged, and settled into a typical boxing stance. They deliberately started a slow circle away from Rodan.

It tossed its head and plowed through the water at them, reminiscent of a bull.

Rather than try to dodge, Alpha Echo ducked low and twisted to avoid being head-butted. They forced themself against the kaiju’s chest, let the impact’s momentum carry them backward, then dug their feet into the ocean floor for leverage. Machinery clanked loudly all up and down their arms as they straightened, levering the kaiju up with them. It faltered on its back feet as they forced it to overbalance. 

It lacked the claws that the previous one had bore, so its flailing did little to the Jaeger’s armor as it tried to find purchase somewhere. An aptly named Wrist Blade shot out of their right arm, the deadly point extending a fair distance out over their fist.

(“Think these things can drown?” Maddie asked.

“Only one way to find out.”)

Letting the kaiju start to fall backwards, they drove the blade into his muscled chest, letting gravity do most of the work. They pinned it to the ocean floor with their weight, carefully watching for any sign of an escape attempt.

It thrashed wildly, electric blue blood seeping into the water, but either it could go a long time without needing to breathe, or a lack of oxygen simply didn’t faze it.

Before Alpha Echo could attempt to deliver a killing blow in lieu of drowning it, a web of teal-blue light spread across its chest beneath the armored plates.

(“Pull back!” Mark yelled. Some kaiju had a unique ability. It was near impossible to guess what would happen prior to seeing it in action, which made them doubly dangerous.)

Retracting the Wrist Blade, the Jaeger jerked away. Just in time, too, because the lights wrapped around its throat and it spit a tangled mess of _something_ right where they’d been crouched only a moment ago.

Wary but not scared off, Alpha Echo readied their shield as they cautiously moved away to circle it again. The kaiju stood, gnashing its teeth over the stab wound in its chest. The webbed lines of light flickered, and this time, they could see the way its throat seemed to contract.

Taking a chance, they raised their shield on the left side and lunged forward, swinging their Electric Knuckles up from below on their right. Their fist connected with the underside of its jaw with not a second to spare, snapping its head back and making it choke on the mystery substance. It bodily threw its weight at them without pausing to recover, knocking them back.

Equipping their Plasma Cannon once more, Alpha Echo let their stumble carry them away from the kaiju, even as it followed, probably wanting to press its advantage. Twisting downward onto one knee as they spun, they point-blank shot the wound in the kaiju’s chest twice before it slammed into them.

Using the water that rushed to surround them as they went under, Alpha Echo pushed the kaiju over them with its own momentum. It splashed down with a shriek not far away.

They both recovered at the same time, but the kaiju, not needing to stand up like a Jaeger did, launched itself forward first.

Before it could make contact, a blur of red slammed into it, soaring over the crouched Alpha Echo’s head to do so. Rodan, with a mighty screech, latched his talons into the burned meat of its shoulders and beat his wings.

Despite the obvious strain, the Titan carried the monster higher before unceremoniously dropping it before it could regain its bearings enough to mount an attack on him.

The kaiju plummeted, twisting in midair, and was met with the business end of Alpha Echo’s sturdier, larger sword, held aloft in both hands.

It’s spine crunched as it was severed, and the sternum shattered, allowing the ribcage to pop open as its body sank down the blade, going abruptly limp. The impact brought Alpha Echo to their knee, and they were only able to support the dead weight for a moment before they were forced to let the tip fall forward into the ocean.

Blue blood suffused the water as they slid the sword out of the body. Hefting it over their shoulder to hang against their armor, they waited for the mechanisms all down their back to essentially reintegrate the individual pieces that made up the sword, leaving only the handle jutting up at an angle along their right shoulder blade.

Rodan returned, wings flaring to slow his descent. Alpha Echo obligingly stepped back from the kaiju’s body, allowing Rodan plenty of room to land on the corpse. He tore vindictively at its face, stabbing his sharp beak into its sightless eyes and tearing out its tongue.

It hung limply from his mouth as he turned to Alpha Echo, eyes bright and curious. Like with Godzilla, they gave him a thumbs up.

(“That’s disgusting,” Mark said, shuddering in his armor.

“Spoils of war,” Maddie countered. “And the circle of life, maybe? Do you think he’ll eat it?”

“ _Maddie_.”)

Rodan dropped the tongue and flared his wings, screeching at them. Taking it for the victory pose it was, Alpha Echo lived up to their name and echoed it, pumping both arms up to form a “V” above them.

And then, in a move that shocked the observers in the Shatterdome into momentary silence, Rodan gracefully bowed forward, though not so far as to unbalance himself from the floating corpse, and swept his wings down and behind him.

Much less gracefully, Alpha Echo mirrored his bow, nearly toppling over in the process.

They caught their balance before they could face-plant into the ocean, but their near-tumble was made worth it. Rodan, in response, tossed his head and, unmistakably, laughed.

• • •

They were met with cheering after emerging from Alpha Echo, safely returned to their spot in the hangar.

Maddie laughingly rolled her eyes and paid little attention to their welcoming committee in favor of pushing through the crowd to find Ling. “Will Rodan’s wing be okay?” she asked as soon as she found her.

Ling snagged them and pulled them away from the crowd before answering. Maddie felt her dad’s relief at escaping, along with his discomfort at the reception, and helpfully shared her excited pride with him. At the very least, it loosened the tension in his shoulders.

Clearly, Ling was a wizard, because she guided them into a conference room that wasn’t only empty, but had a tray of leftover food from a previous meeting sitting on the table.

“Score!” Setting her helmet down, Maddie selected a cinnamon roll dripping with frosting and pointedly ignored her dad’s mental attempts to tell her she would ruin her appetite. To Ling, she asked, “Rodan’ll be fine, right?”

“Based on his flying at the end, I’m sure the damage wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Ling reassured her. “Monarch will keep an eye on him, just in case.”

Maddie sighed in relief. All the Titans had impressive healing abilities, but regrowing a wing sounded out there even for them—except for Ghidorah, of course. Since she had a mouthful of cinnamon roll, she wasn’t able to properly respond, allowing her dad to butt in.

“What was with the cheering?” he asked, fidgeting. He was always squirming in the armor, unlike Maddie. It felt like a second skin to her. Her dad tucked his helmet beneath his arm, radiating a desire to have the suit removed.

“You both had more important things to worry about at the time, so it won’t surprise me if you didn’t notice the significance of Rodan’s reaction to you.”

“Tag team!” Maddie said with a smile.

“Yes, exactly.” Ling looked between the two of them, wearing a restrained expression of excitement.

_Do you know what she’s talking about?_ Maddie thought at her dad. Being outside the Drift automatically numbed the connection it had forged between them, but the Ghost Drifting had been pretty strong for them, and since it was so soon after they’d been completely in each other’s heads, she wondered if her full thought would make it through.

Sure enough, her dad’s head jerked a tiny bit and he turned a wide-eyed look on her. She raised her eyebrows and tried to emotionally project her expectation for a response.

With a little frown, he managed to whisper a faint, _No,_ into her thoughts.

“So what’s so special about a tag team?” Maddie asked, hopefully before Ling could catch on.

“No Titan has ever allowed a Jaeger to take over the fight while they rested,” she told them. “It—the trust that requires…” Smiling knowingly at Maddie, she added, “Perhaps word really did get around.”

Her dad made a funny face. “And that’s a good thing, right? Rodan’s reaction, not—the other thing.”

“Mark, not only have your fights proved a lot of foolish men and women wrong about their perceptions of the Titans, but the overall performance the two of you have put on has almost entirely shut them up. Godzilla’s lack of aggression toward you was one thing, but Rodan’s active, willing show of trust?” Ling clapped her hands together in front of her, beaming smugly. “They no longer have a leg to stand on.”

“Ha! We showed them!” Maddie said proudly. The fights were fun enough on their own, and to find out they had a side effect like that? A true win-win situation in her books.

Her dad’s amusement bled over into her even as he shook his head. “We’re not causing any trouble, are we?”

“Oh, please say we’re causing trouble,” Maddie pleaded.

“It’s not the bad sort of trouble,” Ling said apologetically to Dad. She winked at Maddie.

Cheerfully picking up a blueberry muffin, Maddie saluted in the vague direction of Alpha Echo, more than pleased with how the day was turning out.

• • •

And it only got _better_ from there.

Sometime after dinner, when the sun was in the midst of setting, an alert went out to everyone in the Shatterdome that a Titan was approaching the base. Not just any Titan, either.

Godzilla himself.

Skipping the elevators entirely, Maddie leapt up the stairs to the main level three at a time, grinning even as she panted from her sprint across half the underwater section of the base. No way was she missing this opportunity. No force on earth—otherwise known as Dad—was going to keep her from seeing him up close.

Narrowly avoiding crashing into people as she ran, Maddie finally skidding out of the building. The door she’d left through was off to the side of the hangar, blocking a portion of the enormous deck from view. She circled around, anticipation lightening her steps.

And there he was—the King, in all his glory. The gold and red light of the sunset bloomed like a halo around him where he leaned over the side of the concrete field. Only his head, neck, and the tops of his shoulders stuck out of the water, which seemed very considerate if you asked Maddie. It would have been very easy for him to loom menacingly, utilizing his impressive height to his advantage.

As she got closer, it became apparent that he was eyeing the humans milling about, perhaps wary but by no means in a threatening manner. When some of the braver ones inched closer, he merely snorted at them and ducked his head a bit closer.

The crowd scattered backward a few paces with a collective concerned murmur.

“Should we get the Jaegers?” someone asked.

“I think he’s just curious,” the person beside them replied.

Maddie heard more of the same, most comments ranging between apprehensive and a forceful calm, as she navigated through the group. No one that she heard was downright hostile, which was a fantastic sign.

Opinions on the Titans had been changing since they first stood against the kaiju. Comparing how Castle Bravo initially reacted to Godzilla’s appearance all those years ago to today, where onlookers willingly stood, defenseless, before the King—it was a world of difference.

As people began to hesitantly return to their tasks, sending frequent glances over their shoulders as they left, Maddie was free to finally take in Godzilla’s presence in peace.

She was probably staring, mouth stuck in an absent, awed smile, but she couldn’t have cared. Not counting the encounters while she was in Alpha Echo, Mothra was the only Titan she’d ever had the chance to touch. Ghidorah, almost frustratingly, was the second closest she ever got to another.

And unlike her dad, Aunt Ilene, and Rick, she’d never even had an up-close-and-personal encounter with Godzilla.

Today, at long last, that changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think y'all know what we'll see in the next chapter. ;) 
> 
> How's everyone's March going so far? At least we're nearing GvK, right? 
> 
> • [my tumblr](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com) •


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